Sunday, June 07, 2009

Google Says It's Actually Quite Small - washingtonpost.com

Nice spin…

As might be expected, Google's presentation highlights the company's many good works and "don't be evil" corporate philosophy. But there's another element at front and center of the presentation: According to Warner and Kovacevich, their company holds only a 2.66 percent share of its total market.

If that number seems low for the runaway success story of the Internet age, Google wants you to believe that it's just a question of market definition. Google rejects the idea that it's in the search advertising business, an industry in which it holds more than a 70 percent share of revenue. Instead, the company says that its competition is all advertising, a category broad enough to include newspaper, radio and highway billboards. Google's argument is not simply that it's not a big bully. If you believe the company, it's not even that big.

But, later in the article:

Many routine parts of the company's growth, such as buying small companies to stake out a position in search-related fields, could potentially be construed as anticompetitive if Google is already deemed to have market dominance.

"I think they're going to have trouble with damn near any acquisition, including acquiring your local dry cleaner," Reback said.